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Making the jump from casual player to "pro"

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Captain Quack

Smash Rookie
Joined
Jul 10, 2008
Messages
3
I only say pro because I'm not sure how else to describe it. Basically, I'm a huge smash fan and played melee consistently for around 4 years with friends, never bothering to go in depth about it, e.g all the wavedashing and other moves used in tourney's. Now that Brawl has come out, I think it's a good time to learn new techniques that give people here an edge over the "normal" player. So, my question to you guys is:

What should I start learning to actually get good at Brawl?

My mains at the moment are Marth, Pit and Wolf, although I love playing with snake.

Cheers for the help :)
 
C

Captain Quack

Smash Rookie
Joined
Jul 10, 2008
Messages
3
Ah, I didn't mean jump in that way. I know it's a long process - It's why I started this thread at the start of summer :) I intend to keep you guys posted daily on my "brawl" progress and see if this forum can maybe nurture me into a half decent player :)
 
C

Captain Quack

Smash Rookie
Joined
Jul 10, 2008
Messages
3
PK, that post was really helpful, tried out just focussing on movement and not getting hit, seems to be helping. Can anyone tell me what must-learn techniques there are? I know of L-cancelling but nothing else :(
 
wul

wul

Smash Cadet
Joined
Jul 5, 2008
Messages
41
Location
chirrup! (Medford, NJ)
BBQ°

BBQ°

Smash Champion
Joined
Mar 26, 2008
Messages
2,017
Location
Woodstock, GA
Watch videos of Brawl tournament matches and pay attention to all the details. The way they approach, which moves they use in each situation, etc, etc.

Go to a lot of tournaments and play friendlies with everyone there. Nothing will make you a better player faster than fighting better people. Also, try to record matches of yourself playing. That way you can see which habits you need to break, which mistakes you made, and what tricks you fell for.
 
S

samdaballer

Smash Ace
Joined
May 21, 2007
Messages
606
Location
SoCal
first you have to choose a main, look at any good smasher they use one or two characters, not five, pick one or two and go to the character specific forum and read up
 
R

Rapid_Assassin

Smash Master
Joined
Feb 8, 2005
Messages
4,163
Location
RI
You don't absolutely have to pick a main. There are advantages and disadvantages of doing so, but regardless of how many characters you play, you'll need at least one that you're comfortable with in a double blind pick. For more on this: http://allisbrawl.com/blogpost.aspx?id=1723

The best advice right now is to learn the basics with your characters. The basics help more than any advanced techniques, and you'd be surprised how many people do not learn them, and jump right into trying to learn advanced stuff. Learning how to space properly, and getting a feel for how much lag, damage, knockback, range each move has wins more matches than any advanced technique anyone can teach you.
 
P

PsychoKnight

Smash Cadet
Joined
Jul 10, 2008
Messages
34
Me being a newcomer myself, will tell you this, I have brawled people, and some who actually take it seriously, us newguys have a long way to go, so just keep looking around here, for not just specific information, but also general or tactical information,and you can see you can apply that info a lot with whoever you use, and just keep brawling, always know there is someone out there that is better than you, which means you need to get better, and once you feel you have a name for yourself in your group of friends that you brawl with, or whoever you usually do, then expand and keep brawlibg. Also..yes it does..use the WIFI if you wish.
 
Ø

Ørion

Smash Ace
Joined
Mar 19, 2008
Messages
858
Location
Probably in front of his Wii
Eggm said:
Start playing melee.
Click to expand...
Was wondering how far we would get before that post *sigh*.

Anyway, you should pick one or two characters to really practice with and study (though you should know all the characters) and learn some basic combos and ATs that those characters can do. It will take work, but start trying to implement those combos and ATs into your game. Find people who are pretty good to play with or go to a local tournament, not expecting to win but to see how others play. Go to the character board and start discussing your charater with other people and watching videos of others play your character.
 
Tenki

Tenki

Smash Hero
Joined
Apr 3, 2008
Messages
6,966
Location
GA
Play good players. Use wifi, but keep in mind that they have an easier time shielding attacks offline. Use it to learn people's playstyles and work on your prediction.

It really helps if you have cable/DSL and play other people who have cable/DSL, because that way you won't be thinking about lag so much =/

I haven't played Melee for years, partly because I lent it out to a friend 5 years ago and moved outta state before I could get it back, so I'm basically a Brawl noob. But y'know what, I got to learn a character almost inside and out- range, spacing, and even found a few tricks that noone else seemed to know about yet, and now I'm pretty decent, I'd think. I've almost (almost.) played even with some good players who actually attend offline tournies, or who play online alot, so I can get a feel for the playstyle, since they know how to dodge and shield and crap.

Learn how opponents react to your attacks and movements and punish them. Like a simple one would be jumping out at someone who's recovering - if they're good, they'll usually try to airdodge to go through you, but if you keep the airdodge in mind, you can delay your attack so you hit them when it runs out. See if there are any moves that force your opponent to or dodge in certain ways, then find out how to punish their dodge.

:p learn to adapt to your opponent's style and find a way to counter it.
 
The Halloween Captain

The Halloween Captain

Smash Master
Joined
May 20, 2008
Messages
4,331
Location
The northeast
Take it from a very serious Pika mainer - basics are essential. I should have spent more time on ATs, but i didn't. However, from having one person, my brother, who's extremely even against me entirely becuase his game is built around countering Pika for ten years, I have gotten very familiar with everything conserning Pika's physics, and that has helped.

My level of Pika knows how to respond to any given attack. He should know when his distance and percentages allow him to dair after an attack while the opponent is still lagging, how to dodge reflected thundershocks and use the reflector animation to get an attack in, how to thunder people who can't be seen because they are off the top of the screen, and how to even hit them with aerials while both of you can't see eachother clearly, being both off the top of the screen. My level of Pika is ungimpable (Pika has a very difficult to gimp recovery), has mastered Quick Attack (although i still have a little trouble using QAC to cover distances), and can use Pika's nair as a kill move. My level of Pika can use being hit upward as an opportunity to us specials and prepare for the next attack, and can safely create walls of thunder off the edge to gimp opponents while Pika safely lands on solid ground.

When you are that knowledgable about your main, I'd say your pretty well off in any Smash scene. That might actually be beyond what is necesary, but that level of knowledge has helped me greatly.
 
Popertop

Popertop

Smash Champion
Joined
Jun 6, 2006
Messages
2,131
Location
Houston (Clear Lake)
Ran Iji said:
My 'jump' was getting in my car to drive to actual competition. =p
Click to expand...
And I'll third it.
Seriously, the best advice is getting involved in your Smash community.
Find good smash players who live near you and play them regularly.
Also, attend large tournaments and get TONS of friendlies in.
Don't slack off! GET MOAR FRIENDLIES!
Get friendlies in with the BEST person there.
Don't think, "Oh I'm not good enough. It'll just be a waste of his time."
Getting utterly destroyed is how you get better.
One of the things that helped me was getting my mistakes horribly, horrendously punished.
It gave me some "encouragement" to make less mistakes. ;)

But yeah, Melee is good to play too because you have to play with less mistakes, and you get punished worse for them generally.
Also, the fast pace is good for training your reflexes.

Also also, DI is important. It helps you live.
You won't be beating good people with bad DI.
Learn how to correctly DI your oppenents kill moves, and how to get out of thier choice combos.

It's a little much, but as you play a bunch of different talented smashers it all begins to fall into place.

Don't get discouraged when you lose, because you will. A lot. Quite frequently.
Don't let it get to you. Just learn from it.
 
Pierce7d

Pierce7d

Wise Hermit
Joined
Dec 20, 2006
Messages
6,289
Location
Teaneck, North Bergen County, NJ, USA
3DS FC
1993-9028-0439
Eh, this goes without saying, but everything was already said.

Practice your *** off. If you really want to get awesome, don't think of Smash as "just a hobby" because I sure don't, and neither do any of those people winning tournaments. It takes commitment to be competitive.

The mindset of improving is key. Before you can win, you have to get better. That being said, set yourself in the mindset of "play to improve" and not "play to win." Because you will lose . . . a lot.

Ran Iji said:
You're only as good as the people that you play. Branch out and find people that are going to kick your _______. =)
Click to expand...

I fourth that. There is a tourney in Princeton that I should be @ right now, if only I could get there. I failed to get to a tourney yesterday. This equates to "there are people out there getting better than me."

If you want to be pro, then you're implying that you're hoping to eventually win a tournament, or at least place well. This also implies winning some money. BE PREPARED TO SPEND SOME MONEY ON SMASH IF YOU WANT TO BE PRO. IT COSTS TO TRAVEL, AND IT COSTS TO ENTER TOURNEYS, BUT YOU NEED TO DO THIS TO GET BETTER.

There's no easy way to say that, but it's true.

****, I need a job.
 
brod1986

brod1986

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Jul 5, 2008
Messages
85
Location
UK
i think that you need to allways keep your mind open to new tactics and never become easy to read during a match. keep people guessing.
 
Doggalina

Doggalina

Smash Lord
Joined
Jul 25, 2005
Messages
1,958
Location
Chicagoland (NW Indiana)/Purdue West Lafayette
Popertop said:
Also also, DI is important. It helps you live.
You won't be beating good people with bad DI.
Learn how to correctly DI your oppenents kill moves, and how to get out of thier choice combos.
Click to expand...
Of all the ATs out there, this is the most important one (even more important than short hopping). Make sure you don't even think about DIing properly during a match. You have to do it by instinct. This is the only AT that will give you instant results once you get it down. Unlike short hopping or other things like that, this doesn't need to be incorporated into your game. You just do it and live longer.

Choose a character and learn the ATs needed. This will take some "grinding," but eventually you'll do them by without thinking about it.

Of course, being able to do ATs isn't everything. You have to be able to use them. Read character specific forums for info about that.

Even once you incorporate ATs into your game, you still have to learn your character inside and out. Competitive Smash isn't a battle of manual dexterity and reflexes; it's a battle of minds. Therefore, you're going to need some knowledge of your character, among other things. Know ever single quirky thing about them. Know your hitboxes. Know some general killing percents. Know some "combos."

Next, learn some matchups. Every character (besides Snake and Meta) has at least one difficult matchup. Learn how to get around this. Practice against these characters as much as possible. It really comes in handy to have a group of friends that don't all use the same characters. For instance, between myself and 3 of my friends, we use DK, Diddy, Pit, MK, Sheik, Zelda, Kirby, Bowser, ICs, and Mario. One of my friends plays Mario and I play DK. We're both considering picking up a little DDD so we can each practice against him.

After all this, it all comes down to playing smart and adapting. Some good reads on this in general can be found at www.sirlin.net (he writes about "yomi" and other things). However, this mostly comes from experience, and that experience obviously comes from tournaments (sadly I haven't gone to one yet, but I plan on attending Well Thought Out Name in September)
 
P

PundiLord

Smash Rookie
Joined
Jul 26, 2008
Messages
2
Wow, alot of this info helped me alot :) Just wanted to thank you guys and Captain Quack for starting this up.
 
MidnightAsaph

MidnightAsaph

Smash Lord
Joined
May 30, 2008
Messages
1,191
Location
Bloomington, MN
I would learn as much as you can about the metagame, then watch it in actual action in pro videos. I played Melee for seven years just about, so I'm definitely a veteran as far as that goes (I played 64, but hardly enough). A lot of Brawl comes natural to me. I was beginning to train with ATs in Melee, but then Brawl was going to come out, so I decided not to.

But if anything is going to make you good, it is not exactly learning, but experiencing as well. A lot of the good players are older than eighteen. And around that age, if I remember, you are at your peek of intelligence (I don't want to say those people are smarter than every other age, but it's apparently a good age. Either way...). In Other Words, play the game with intelligence, not brawn. My best advice, also, IS A LOT OF EXPERIENCE WITH HUMAN PLAYERS!

Playing a lot of people will greatly enhance your skills, which is part of being pro.

I decided to go pro with Brawl, and my first step to becoming that is to attend pro tournaments (I'm talking about CH4). If I suck, I'll just quit Brawl, because honestly, I won't get any better without a little aging and more experience, both of which will not be easy to get with my circumstances).

If you want pro, get experience, learn, and attune your mind. That's all I can say. If someone would like to correct me, shoot.
 
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